The Grant Family
of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire
The 1641/2 Census
Protestation Returns from only three Parish's in Derbyshire have survived the years. The Nottinhamshire returns are reasonably complete for nearly every Parish, (Babworth being one of the exceptions), although only males over 16 are listed as a rule. There is only one Grant entry for the whole County, John Grant Vicar of Hockerton. It is therefore likely that he was appointed to the incumbency and migrated from another county.
There are also very few entries in the name of Grant, in Derbyshire Parish Records for the 17th Century. It therefore looks as if the Grants moved into the East Midlands to escape the Plague. Alternatively, they may have been Scots Cattle Drovers who stayed behind in the Peak District. It was the custom of the Drovers to drive their herds down to Southern England, keeping to the high country of the Pennine Chain.
Whatever the case, there were only a handful of them in Derbyshire, even as late as the second half of the 18th century.
The Grant Family in Derbyshire.
It was never very easy for ordinary folk to move from one village to another, until at least the second half of the 18th Century. Even then, and for many years after, strangers were never welcomed. At times they were driven away by the locals, with a hail storm of stones. This was because of the Vagrancy Laws of the time, which placed all the poor in the care of the local parish. Old customs die hard, and live on today in some English Villages. One of my aunts opened up a shop in a small Bucks Village, when she was a young woman. Whilst she soon captured the hearts of her customers, she was always regarded as a 'foreigner', until the day she sold up and retired.
This idiosyncrancy of Village Life, prevalent in the age when Parish Registers were in their infancy, has to be born in mind. Thus, the small Peak District village of Hope, may have been the first home of the Grants in Derbyshire. It was here that a certain Mary Grant got married on the 20th May,1599. Thereafter there are but two more Grant marriages in Hope in the 1600's. With the start of the 18th century, we see them in Hope, Castleton, and Walton, which is not far from Chesterfield. Refer to map for location of these villages - then click on 'Back'.
The first Grant, whom I can reasonably identify as an ancestor of my own, was WILLIAM GRANT of WALTON. How he came to Walton, I do not know. He may have been the same William Grant who married Hannah Ashmore at GLOSSOP (10 miles due north of Chinley), on 18th October, 1708. We can only wonder, and surmise. It remains a possibility, when we look at the temporary disappearance of Grants from Walton, betwen July, 1730 and December, 1764.
The facts are these. William and Hannah Grant of Walton, baptised children, John - 1715, Ann - 1719, William - 1723, and Martha - 1726. Then tragedy strikes. It was most likely one of the cholera outbreaks, which decimated the population around this time, that claimed Hannah and Ann, within two months of each other, in the summer of 1730. Only Martha appears in between, to christen a son, Joseph, in Chesterfield in 1745.
Almost two years after William's wife and daughter were struck down, we find the marriage of WILLIAM GRANT to JANE WARD, on 16th June, 1732, at PEAK FOREST. Now this is really interesting, because Peak Forest was not your run of the mill, Church or Chapel. It was the English equivalent of Gretna Green, and catered very much for 'Runaway Marriages, and Elopements'. So was Jane under age? Or, perhaps, William was afraid of how his neighbours may have reacted. It couldn't have been his son William getting married. He would only have been 7 years old. If we need more confirmation, then I think we have it, with the baptism of Michael, at Chinley Independent, (note - a Congregational Church, and not the Established Church), on 17th October, 1732. So if this is the same William Grant, then Jane must have been noticeably expecting, when she married.
William could easily have been one of the Castleton GRANTS. It is a good possibility, since the forename, Michael keeps popping up in Castleton. For a start there was a Michael Grant, who baptised four children (one of them a Michael) between 1699 and 1714. William may have been an elder child.
William baptised two more sons in Chinley, Samuel in 1736, and John in 1757. The Scene then shifts back to Walton, where Michael Grant christened his son William in 1764,(after his father?), Michael in 1767, his daughter Hannah in 1771,(after his mother?), and son Thomas in 1774. There was another Michael, baptised in Castleton in 1747, but he would have only been 17 years old, in 1764. Also his father and mother were George and Ann, names not used by Michael of Walton, when naming his children.
So, what was it that drew the Grants, back across the Pennines from Chinley to Walton? Was there still a family home there for them? Perhaps Martha had stayed on, to keep it for the day her father would return? It might also have been the lure of better paid employment. The Peak Forest Canal into Whaley Bridge, was still far into the future, with probably only work for farm labourers in Chinley. It was a different story over in Walton. Construction of the Chesterfield Canal, commenced in 1760, and it wasn't fully open until 1776. Michael, may very well have returned to Walton, to work as a 'navigator' (navvy).
The new Canal, definitely played a part in the Grant family fortunes, once it was open. Roads were horrendous, and the Canals opened up new horizons for those who had always wondered what was over the hill, and beyond the next village. In February 1771, Hannah, daughter of Michael Grant, married Thomas Benton of Gamston, Notts, in Chesterfield. How could these two have ever met each other, without the Canal? Again, please refer to the map. My guess is that Thomas was a boatman, and this marriage led to my Grant ancestors, making the next move into Nottinghamshire.
Christiana Bennet lived in the village of Wingerwoth, just across the fields from Walton. William Grant, son of Michael, would have been 29, and she 24, when they married. If their families had approved, I think the marriage would have been in their own parish church of Chesterfield. But no, they married in Anston, in May, 1793, just across the County border, in Yorkshire, and conveniently half way between Chesterfield and Retford.
The banns register for Anston, however, mentions 'William Grant of the Parish of Babworth, and Christiana Bennett of this Parish'. Also the witnesses were Jane and Jonathan Rogers, who as we shall see, were William's employers. He must have got himself a job on the Forest Farm, between Ranby and Babworth, before their marriage was arranged. The canal follows the contour line, just to the north of Forest Farm, which I think confirms that William arrived there by boat, whether on board, or simply leading the Horse along the Towpath. On the way he would have passed through Ranby. See photos of Canal at Ranby, lookingwest, and looking
east. Click on 'Back' to return to this page.
Much of the Grant Story would not have been uncovered without many hours of careful detective work, on the part of my fifth removed cousin, Linda. All credit is due to Linda in finding William and Christiana's marriage in Anston, the Coroner's certificate, and many many other events, which were not so freely available in the days when the Net was only a flicker in the mind of it's parent, the Microchip. Hence a "chip off the old block".
Return to Surnames Index page.
Continue on to The Grant Family of
Nottinghamshire
See Immediate Grant Family Details
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Created on ... March 16, 2001
